No tubing on the hard deck

[TubeDude]

[cool][font "Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"][black][size 1][#0000ff]First hard deck trip of this season. Hit the ice at Mantua with Flycasting. First hole drilled about 8:30. Air temp 10 degrees, but no breeze. No fish either. Nothing on sonar in 15 feet of water straight out from ramp. Ice over 4" thick and hard, with a bit of snow to help with walking.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Moved out to 17 feet. Nada, zip, zilch. A few other hardy folks started coming out on the ice. Most of them stayed closer to shore. Wondered if they knew something.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Moved out to 18.5 feet and saw fish on the sonar in the first hole. Drilled more holes and started fishing. Instant bites...from bitty perch. Caught several before getting a solid whack from a feisty bow. Flycasting was getting perch too and also iced a silver slime rocket. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Waves of a few fish at a time would come through and when we saw fish we usually got bites. I did best on my new glow wermz...in both white and chartreuse. I caught fish on waxies, crawlers and perch meat. Had to keep changing around to keep getting bites. Flycasting also tried some meal worms but did not get any action. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Most fish were a bit up off the bottom. Several perch and a couple of the trout we caught were taken about mid depth, after lifting and reeling a few inches at a time up off the bottom. We saw quite a few trout size sonar blips go through fairly shallow and a lot at mid depth.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I understand there was an earthquake about 11 AM. That's about when our fishing slowed WAAAAAAAY down. Only a few bites and a couple of bitty perch after that. We didn't feel it on the ice, but we sure noticed the results.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The chilly breezes came up just after noon and kept getting stronger. All the guys with ice tents hoisted sail to get out of the worst of it. We packed up and boogied. None of the guys we talked to on the way in had caught anything other than some dinky perch. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Just for grins we stopped at Willard Bay on the way back to check out the water level. Looks like about 7 or 8 feet down from high water mark and still falling. We picked up some lures in the exposed brush of the north marina and around the rocks at the outlet. The drain box at the outlet was sucking water out and there was a pretty good flow going out into the marsh.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Had a good day with Flycasting. Not so good on the way home. Ran into a closure on I-15 north of Ogden. They were routing all traffic onto other roads because they had blown up the overpass on 31st street. That was good for an extra hour in drive time through scenic Ogden.[/#0000ff]
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[Kraizee_Skot]

[font "Times New Roman"][size 3][#ff4040]I thought you would've just drilled a big enough hole in the ice to plop your tube right into the water.[]
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[Bluegillman]

MMMM...can u tell me some about the sled? Who makes them? I have other ideas for it but need info about it.
Oh you would be wonder what I was up to about it so I will tell u what is inside of my head, I thought that would be just right for dragging the deer to the truck easier. Not too big or small as it looks just right.
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]I believe ours are Jet Sleds. They are available from many suppliers of ice fishing gear.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Wouldn't recommend them for hauling deer, expecially without wheels. They pull over snow and ice easy enough, but not over rocks or soil. There are quite a few inventions (with wheels) for getting your venison out of the woods.[/#0000ff]
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